Thursday, January 25, 2007

I am Back ...

The New Year is only 25 days old and I have already broken one of my resolutions – being more regular in writing my blog. I had resolved this year that I would try to find out if I have a “creative me” and make her wake up more often; and if I did not find one – try and develop one!

So, where I have been? Kinda busy – sounds a nice way of explaining the break; but that is not entirely true – I have been plain lazy also in betweens. We shifted apartments as the new year dawned – that way I got to leave all the ‘old dirt’ literally behind me. I liked our new place – it is a single bedroom (the previous one was 2 bedroom) and seems quite spacious. In 4 hours of shifting the Mr. drove 42 nails in the house and magically set up all the decorative items. The best part of the new place is “GAS Cooking”!!!Well, for all those friends, not in the USA – please don’t think I have gone mad to be pleased about “Gas” for cooking. Because in the US of A, getting gas cooking in your apartment is nothing less than a blessing. I am posting some pictures of our house here.

Finally, I got to satisfy my religious desires two weeks ago with a long pending trip to the “Tirupathi of USA” – Pittsburgh temple. It was a long 6 hour drive from our place – the Mr. and me took turns to enjoy the smoooooth Ohio Turnpike – for folks who drive on the broken and hardly existing roads of Detroit – driving on this newly laid(I think so), extremely smooth and silky road in the state of Ohio is like wearing a silk shirt! One word of Caution – if you are driving via Ohio to Pittsburgh – please take a food break before you leave the state of Ohio, because once you get into Pennsylvania State till you reach Pittsburgh (which is about an hour’s drive) you do not have any Food exits at all.We visited the temple twice – Saturday evening (as soon as we arrived in Pittsburgh) and then again on Sunday morning to attend the very beautiful Suprabatham sevai – enough dharshanam to last for a year maybe.

What amazed me most was that just like Thirupathi this temple also has been built on a steep hill – well not as high as the 7 hills of Thirupathi but definitely on a one small hill. If you are tad too fast you will miss the discreet and conspicuous left turn that leads to the temple. Narrow winding paths lead up to this small yet very beautiful temple. I have visited two other “big” temples here in the US – one in NJ and one in California, so I really had great expectations for Pittsburgh and was a bit let-down to see that it was much smaller than the other. There are very less idols also inside. But it was the sheer beauty and exact resemblance to his counterpart in India, of Venkatachalapathi that held me in awe. I am thinking that since it was the one of the very first temples to be built in this Alien land it is so famous. The best part of visiting any temple in the US is the unlimited amount of time you get to stand just few feet away from the main deity. Visuals of huge monsters yelling “Jarangadi” in Thirupathi and “Veru Veru” in Guruvayoor came into my mind. Every time I visited these places I have complained that I could not even see the deity from top to bottom. But this time, I had no complains for I stood almost 20 mins just 2 feet away from the Lord!

The Mr.’s favorite thing in the trip was the Temple’s food. That was probably the best Prasad I have ever had. Tasty and hot Pongal, sambhar rice, pulihara and curd rice and the sweet boondi, which I wished were served as Ladoos instead.

We choose the wrong weekend for a trip – it was raining all through. After having lost our way in an attempt to reach the Pittsburgh downtown, we gave up all our photography dreams and ambled back to the cosy confines of our hotel – which shockingly had 3 Indian channels! I must say – I was bowled over with surprise to see Star TV, Vijay TV and ETV on the 27 inch idiot box in Days Inn. Globalization is definitely on its way!

Here is one of the two pictures that we clicked in the whole 2 day trip.The next day was Pongal and since it was Martin Luther King’s day – I got a day off. While the Mr. went to office, I behaved like a typical house-wife and made Chakara pongal and b’fast for him and saw him off at the door with the apron round my waistJ. Here is some pongal that I offered as naivedyam.So, there is a recap of what I have been doing for a while now. I had been wanting to write this since a long, the longer i postponed the more hesitant I felt to write it all down. But then I somehow keyed it all in. Hopefully I will continue blogging often from now on.

hi,This is Ramji in India.Nice to find you on this blog. How are you and Rajesh.We all are fine and my son has JUST turned 5 and he is into UKG.How is life. Please ask KP to contact me at:ramjinaik@gmail.com